interview.39 Moreover, information and counselling about the procedure should be widely disseminated in order to facilitate access to the procedure.40 Additional procedural and evidentiary safeguards for child applicants should be put in place, including ‘priority processing of their claims, provision of appropriately trained legal representatives, interviewers and interpreters as well as the assumption of a greater share of the burden of proof by the State’.41 Government officials who may come in contact with stateless persons through their regular work (for example, social services or immigration control) should be trained to identify potential applicants and should refer them to the determination procedure.42 Finally, authorities involved in the identification of stateless persons should be provided with training on statelessness and the human rights of stateless persons.43 Recommendations 31. Based on the preceding overview, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and the Americas Network on Nationality and Statelessness make the following recommendations, proposing that Colombia: I. Ensure that all children born in the territory of Colombia, or to Colombian parents, are guaranteed without discrimination to their right to a nationality as enshrined in Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. II. Fully promote, respect, protect and fulfil its obligations towards stateless persons under international human rights law. III. Ratify and fully implement the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. IV. Establish a statelessness determination procedure, ensuring that the procedure is fair, effective and accessible to all persons in Colombia regardless of their legal status. The procedure should comply with international standards of due process and follow the procedural safeguards outlined in UNHCR’s Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons. V. Allow for automatic acquisition of Colombian nationality for all children born in Colombia who would otherwise be stateless on a non-discretionary basis and in accordance with its obligations under Articles 2, 3 and 7 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Such children should not be required to naturalise and Colombian nationality should not be withheld from them if they cannot prove that they have no access to another nationality. VI. Ensure universal and immediate access to birth registration with a special emphasis eradicating discrimination and other barriers to access faced by vulnerable populations, such as indigenous peoples, IDPs, returnees and Afro-Colombians. VII. Institute a regular and comprehensive programme of mobile civil registry units that provide services to all communities living in remote, rural and border areas where such services are lacking. 39 Ibid, paras. 71, 89-93. Ibid, para 68; UNHCR, Good Practices Paper – Action 6, p. 5. 41 UNHCR, Statelessness Handbook, para 119. 42 UNHCR, Good Practices Paper – Action 6, p. 4. 43 Although Colombia only granted statelessness status to one individual in 2016, it is of note that Colombia’s provision of a threeyear travel document to those it identifies as stateless surpasses the one-year travel document duration suggested in the 1954 Convention. 40 8